IF MILLIONS OF US, ALL AT THE SAME EXACT TIME, CALL OR EMAIL SOMEONE WITH OUR KEYWORDS-OF-TERROR-FILLED SCRIPT.

WE CAN GIVE OUR NATION’S IMPRESSIVE SURVEILLANCE APPARATUS THE KIND OF TEST IT DESERVES.

They say they don’t read or listen to the contents of our messages. Why not test it out? - It'll be fun.

KEYWORDS-OF-TERROR-FILLED SCRIPT -> http://trollthensa.com/

Former CIA contractor Edward Snowden has carried out one of the biggest leaks in US history, exposing a top-secret NSA surveillance program to the media.

Leading tech companies were revealed to be involved in intelligence gathering through PRISM spy tool.

Follow NSA leak fallout at RT - LIVE UPDATES

The American intelligence director and the White House have finally confirmed what insiders have long known.

The Obama administration is spying on the entire world. Politicians in Germany are demanding answers.

Read the story at Spiegel Online International

New Citi-Commissioned EIU Report Projects Competitiveness of 120 of the World's Major Cities in 2025.

A new Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) research report, "Hot Spots 2025: Benchmarking the Future Competitiveness of Cities," commissioned by Citi, projects that São Paulo, Incheon and Mumbai will see the greatest surge in global competitiveness between 2012 and 2025.

Released today at the New Cities Summit in São Paulo, the report forecasts the competitiveness of 120 cities in 2025 based on their projected ability to attract capital, business, talent and tourists.

Read more here

Download the Report (PDF)

Texas #1 - California Last in Rankings

On April 17, SBE Council published the "Business Tax Index 2013: Best to Worst State Tax Systems for Entrepreneurship and Small Business."

The Index ranks the 50 states according to the costs of their tax systems for starting and growing a small business.

SBE Council's "Business Tax Index 2013" pulls together 21 different tax measures, and combines those into one tax score that allows the 50 states to be compared and ranked. Among the taxes included are income, capital gains, property, death/inheritance, unemployment, and various consumption-based taxes, including state gas and diesel levies. The report was authored by SBE Council Chief Economist Raymond Keating.

According to the "Business Tax Index 2013," the 10 best state tax systems are: 1) Texas, 2) South Dakota, 3) Nevada, 4) Wyoming, 5) Washington, 6) Florida, 7) Alabama, 8) Colorado, 9) Ohio, and 10) Alaska.

The 10 worst state tax systems are: 41) Connecticut, 42) Oregon, 43) Minnesota, 44) New York, 45) Maine, 46) Vermont, 47) Iowa, 48) New Jersey, 49) Hawaii, and 50) California.

To view the online interactive map with state highlights – Business Tax Index 2013

Bayou State Would Rocket to a Top 5 State on SBE Council's Small Business Policy Index

In the latest SBE Council Cybercolumn, chief economist Ray Keating looks at the tax reform plan offered by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, which would eliminate the state's income taxes.

The improvement in Louisiana's competitive position – via SBE Council's " U.S. Business Policy Index" and "Business Tax Index" – would be dramatic.

This forward-looking survey asked employers in 42 countries and territories about their hiring activities the 1st Quarter 2013.

One of the most trusted indices for employment. – Employment Outlook Survey Q1

This is the last number of this year. Our first year has been been appreciated by many readers since we have taken up quite a number of different topics.

This time, Lynn Reiser - recently awarded by the Association for Business Economics as the best forecaster in 2011 - introduces hernew outlook for U.S.. economy to our readers.

Mikael Grömling from the DIW institute in Cologne makes a similar outlook for Germany. I myself would like to give some comments on the new European banking supervision.

Have some nice holiday soon,

Have a good and successful 2013,

See you again next year (with hopefully a number of encouraging contributions)

Hubert Fromlet

Professor of International Economics

Welcome to visit www.financialworld.se

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council released its "U.S. Business Policy Index 2012: Ranking the States on Policy Measures and Costs Impacting Small Business and Entrepreneurship." 

The Index, now in its 17th year, ranks the 50 states according to 46 different policy measures, including a wide array of tax, regulatory and government spending measures. (Visit the interactive map of the Index, which highlights the key positives and negatives for each state on SBE Council's website here.)

SBE Council president and CEO Karen Kerrigan noted: "With all of the focus on federal policy in recent times, it is important to remember that policies at the state level have a major effect on entrepreneurs and businesses for better or for worse. Many governors understand that a friendly policy environment is critical to attracting investment and business, and they are working to improve key policies that will help drive job growth, entrepreneurship and economic opportunity. Small businesses are benefitting from policy competition between the states, and it is encouraging to see leadership on key issues such as fiscal reform, sensible spending, and tax and regulatory relief. The difference in policy costs from state to state can be quite striking, and that matters for entrepreneurship and for a state's economy."

Raymond J. Keating, SBE Council's chief economist and author of the study, pointed out, "Quite simply, policy decisions matter when it comes to making business and investment decisions. Entrepreneurs and investors understand this fact of economic life. But it's hit or miss with elected officials. As illustrated by this index, some get it, and some clearly do not."

U.S. Business Policy Index 2012: Policy Rankings (from most favorable to least favorable)

Rank   State

1         South Dakota

2         Nevada

3         Texas

4         Wyoming

5         Florida

6         Washington

7         Alabama

8         Utah

9         Colorado

10       Arizona

11       Michigan

12       Virginia

13       Indiana

14       South Carolina

15       Mississippi

16       North Dakota

17       Tennessee

18       Ohio

19       Alaska

20       New Hampshire

21       Georgia

22       Missouri

23       Oklahoma

24       Pennsylvania

25       Louisiana

26       New Mexico

27       Wisconsin

28       Kansas

29       Kentucky

30       West Virginia

31       Idaho

32       Montana

33       Delaware

34       Arkansas

35       Illinois

36       Maryland

37       North Carolina

38       Massachusetts

39       Nebraska

40       Minnesota

41       Rhode Island

42       Connecticut

43       Oregon

44       Iowa

45       Hawaii

46       Maine

47       New York

48       Vermont

49       New Jersey

50       California

The "U.S. Business Policy Index 2012" (formerly called the "Small Business Survival Index") can be read and downloaded on SBE Council's website here. For an interactive online U.S. map summary, please Click here

Prior to the start of the World Entrepreneurship Forum 2012 from October 24-27 in Lyon, France, SBE Council President & CEO Karen Kerrigan weighed in with Forbes on what makes the U.S. a solid place for starting a business, as well as weaknesses it needs to fix.

The piece profiles different countries, and how delegates of the Forum viewed their own country's competitive position and ecosystem supporting entrepreneurship and business growth.

You can view the slide show by clicking here

Source – SBE Council

In each of the eight Global Innovation 1000 studies, Booz & Company has collected and published the top 20 publicly-traded companies worldwide that spent the most on R&D.

In addition, for the past three years we have asked the Global Innovation 1000 survey respondents to name the companies they thought were the world’s most innovative.

More information here

The World Wide Web Foundation today launched the Web Index – a new country-by-country global study that measures the impact of the Web on the world’s people and nations.

Web inventor and Web Foundation founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee hosted an event in London to mark the launch of the Index. He was joined in conversation by two of the world’s leading Web experts: Wael Ghonim, internet activist and Head of Marketing of Google Middle East & North Africa, and Juliana Rotich, co-founder and Executive Director of Ushahidi, the Kenyan crowd-mapping platform.

Read more here

The Obama Administration has announced setting up of an institute for manufacturing innovations which will help prevent jobs going to India and China.

“This institute will help make sure that manufacturing jobs of tomorrow take root not in places like China or India, but right here in the United States of America,” US President Barack Obama said in a statement.

“That is how we will put more people back to work and build an economy that lasts,” he added.

The National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), which will be based in Ohio, will be a public-private partnership initiative and has received USD 70 million as the initial financial assistance.

“I am pleased that we are taking steps to strengthen American manufacturing by launching a new manufacturing institute in Ohio,” he added.

Obama also announced immediate steps to launch a pilot institute to serve as a proof-of concept for the NNMI.

Five federal agencies – the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and NASA – jointly committed to invest USD 45 million in a pilot institute on additive manufacturing.

According to the White House, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) will provide the innovation infrastructure needed to support new additive manufacturing technology and products in order to become a global center of excellence for

The national debt has now increased by more than $64,000 per federal taxpayer since Barack Obama was inaugurated president.

Read the CNSNews.com article - The $64,000 Question

Google has offered to settle antitrust charges following an ultimatum by EU regulators investigating its business practices, in a move that could stave off a hefty fine.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia set an early July deadline for the world's most popular search engine to resolve the concerns of more than a dozen rivals, including Microsoft, or face formal charges.

"We have made a proposal to address the four areas the European Commission described as potential concerns. We continue to work cooperatively with the Commission," Google spokesman Al Verney said in a statement on Monday.

He declined to provide details.

Almunia's spokesman Antoine Colombani confirmed that the EU watchdog received a letter from Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, on Monday (2 July) in reply to Almunia. He gave no details.

Almunia in May identified four areas of concerns related to Google's business practices following an 18-month long investigation.

He said Google may have favoured its own search services over those of rivals and may have copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without their permission.

He also said the company's advertising deals with websites may have blocked rivals while its contractual restrictions may prevent advertisers from moving their online campaigns to rival search engines.

The FairSearch coalition, whose members include online travel agencies and Google complainants Expedia and TripAdvisor, said it hoped Google's proposals would address the issues.

"We hope the proposals reflect a greater willingness to end Google's anti-competitive behavior than has its consistent rejection of the concerns that Almunia identified after collecting evidence for nearly two years," FairSearch's lawyer Thomas Vinje said in a statement.

External links

googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.be

Fairsearch

Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world to live in, Karachi is the cheapest, reports the private institute Mercer.

Most European cities drop in the ranking; Australian and New Zealand cities surge

London drops 7 places to rank 25

Read the full Global Overview

Worldwide top 50 cities: Cost of Living rankings here